Thursday, January 28, 2016

On January 2, 2016, 2 older grain elevators at Wilson Creek caught fire. One was filled with canola, the other with wheat. Both were a total loss. Local fire-fighting trucks from Grant County Fire District 12 were assisted with units from Districts 5 and 13, as well as Ephrata. There may have been others.

I had seen the smoke from Coulee City, but did not think much of it until alerted by a friend that something big was on fire. Before I noticed the fire, photographer Jonathan Fischer happened to be in town and took these photos early in the fire, posted with permission:

This and another train had alerted the railroad dispatcher that the elevator was on fire. When I arrived on the scene, I caught up with the signal maintainer who said he had told the dispatcher to close down the railroad pending the fire being knocked down enough to resume operations.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

You can make out the railroad grade on the west side of the river, working it's way down from the left to the right. Also, the tunnel portal is visible as a black dot near the center. The switchbacks to the current construction level can also be seen.

Note that you can see the tunnel portal on the left hand side of the photo and then the bridge downgrade from there crossing the Columbia River. This is the bridge that was built in record time to bring construction supplies across the river by rail, but it turned out the bridge could not handle the weight of the railroad.